Biographies of DFA's Chief Spokespeople

Charles Chamberlain, Chair, Democracy for America

Charles started as a volunteer leader of a local Democracy for America group in Miami. In July of 2006, he joined DFA staff in Burlington Vermont as Political Director, where he led powerful issue campaigns and game changing endorsements taking on Republicans, Wall Street, and corporate Democrats. As Executive Director starting in 2013, Charles led DFA on issues like the fight against income inequity, campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter, strategies like expanding the voting electorate by focusing on the New American Majority of people of color and progressive white voters, and endorsements like Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign for President. As Chair since the beginning of 2019, Charles has focused on his roles as a key spokesperson, fundraiser and movement leader to build power for progressives activists, leaders and electeds nationwide.

Yvette Simpson, Chief Executive Officer, Democracy for America

Yvette is DFA’s key spokesperson bringing her experience, passion, and commitment to changing the world in advocating for advancing the voices and power of progressives in our democracy nationwide. She is a lawyer, former Cincinnati City Council President Pro Tempore, and the first woman to serve as a Chief Executive Officer at DFA as well as the first woman of color in executive leadership. Being the first to achieve high heights is not new to Yvette, having been the first in her family to graduate college, the first Black woman in Cincinnati's 200-year history to win a Mayoral primary, and most recently as DFA Federal Electoral Manager in 2018, drove historic victories electing the most progressive and diverse coalition of candidates to Congress in America’s history. Yvette has served on the local board for YWCA, Urban League, Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, and the UC Law Legal Access Program, and recognized by the Cincinnati Business Courier for Forty under 40 in 2005, received YWCA Career Woman of Achievement in 2014, and was named to the She the People Steering Committee in 2018.

Neil Sroka, Communications Director

Neil Sroka joined DFA in 2013 and serves as the organization’s Communications Director and primary spokesperson. Prior to joining DFA, Neil was the Press Secretary for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Communications Director for Ann McLane Kuster's 2010 campaign in New Hampshire's Second Congressional District. He also served in the Obama administration as the Director of New Media at the U.S. Department of Commerce, ran social media projects for MoveOn.org, and managed new media for Barack Obama's primary campaigns in South Carolina & Ohio. Neil graduated from George Washington University and studied politics and philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford

That episode and others offered clues to how Ocasio-Cortez and her social media practices fit into a national legislature that’s slowly becoming younger, less male and more diverse. The approach Ocasio-Cortez is modeling — and the political world is studying — gives her a measure of control by communicating directly with constituents and responding to critics in close to real time.

“She knows how to navigate this space in a way that others don’t,” said Yvette Simpson, incoming CEO of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee. Also, Simpson pointed out, “She’s not accountable to that power structure” in Congress. “She’s accountable to the group that put her there.”